Online advertisements are important revenue generators for publishers. As consumers turn away from traditional media to spend more time on the Internet, and increase spending there as well, online advertisements are becoming even more critical. One key concern for marketers is how to effectively target online advertisements to consumers that are interested and likely to buy the specific or even uniquely identifiable product or service, or even inquire or pay attention to the pitch.
Additionally, online advertisements are presented to consumers over an increasing variety of devices, from stationary devices, to tablet devices, and mobile devices. Each has variations in screen size for display, and mechanisms for user interaction. For example, stationary devices provide high bandwidth connections with larger screen sizes (or even multiple screens). By contrast, digital cell telephones have a lower bandwidth and screen size, but can provide user interactions that leverage cell services, such as telephone calls, SMS messages, and GPS capabilities.
One effective way of monitoring the effectiveness of an ad campaign is to use the PPC (pay per click) technique in which marketers are charged only when a user actually clicks on, or otherwise engages with a particular advertisement via one or more of the connection mediums, sponsored to be made available along with the advertised uniquely identifiable objects.
One problem with PPC (pay per click) model is that conventional online publishers, such as major horizontal search engines, do not distinguish PPC advertising campaigns for uniquely identifiable objects (e.g., a used vehicle or real estate) and services from typical advertisements (e.g., of a box of tissue). A uniquely identifiable object (UIO) can be distinguished from all other objects, even those with substantially similar manufacturing specifications. While a UPC (Universal Product Code) specifies a species of product, a uniquely identifiable object is distinguishable even within the product species. Instead, marketers typically purchase a standard advertisement that is selected based on key words or categories.
Moreover, there is no centralized service or exchange to provide third party publishers with advertisements of UIOs or peripheral advertisements related to a UIO being displayed.
What is needed is a technique for the implementation of sponsored online advertisements and associated connection mediums to be made available along with uniquely identifiable objects displayed on 3rd party digital service providers.